


Lean Time for Heroes

by HiLarpItsCat



Series: Lilith's Lullaby [2]
Category: Scion (Tabletop RPG)
Genre: 1990s, CW: Body Horror, CW: Graphic Descriptions of Violence, TBD AU, TBD Dark!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:30:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6667867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiLarpItsCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to "The Unthinkable Can Come True" Dark!AU where Evie defects to the Titan's side.</p><p>It had been three years since the world ended. Since the destruction of the prison. Since the Titans began to walk the earth again.</p><p>Now what?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The End of the World is Bigger Than Love

_It starts with a teaspoon of trouble,_  
_it ends in bliss and penury._  
_There is no pension plan for heroes,_  
_so you'll want to get the hell out of my way._  
_Get out of the way._

_Pack it up, lean times for heroes._  
_Pack it up, call it a day._  
_Our pockets and their jails are empty,_  
_call it even, heave away._  
\--- "Lean Time for Heroes," The World/Inferno Friendship Society

* * *

#### Chicago, 1990

Bran collapsed against the wall of the alley. This building seemed solid enough. It would hold up while he caught his breath. Nobody coming, he reassured himself. He was safe for the moment. 

But only for a moment. They always came, eventually.

It had been three years since the world ended. Since the destruction of the prison. Since the Titans began to walk the earth again.

Some days, it was all Bran could do to keep from crying. If he started crying, he might never stop.

He heard a sound from the other side of the wall: rocks or brick crumbling. There was a broken window above his head. Stupid, stupid, thought Bran. He should have looked around more closely before he relaxed. 

But, now that he was listening, he realized that it was coming from someone stumbling inside. Someone small and clumsy. He jumped up and grabbed the windowsill, pulling himself up with ease. There were few upsides to this whole mess, but all of this fighting had been good news to Ares, the God of War; and, in turn, to his Scion. Bran was stronger, faster. His stamina was better. His reflexes were quicker. It had kept him alive. 

Inside, the weak remains of sunlight filtered through holes in the roof. The interior of the building had been gutted and was now rubble and dust. This neighborhood had been hit harder by the Titans than Bran had originally thought when he went to scout it out. 

Another shower of stone, and Bran could see what it was. Just a coyote, nosing around the ruins. Any humans were long gone. 

Anywhere the Titans had resurfaced were abandoned. People bolted from the cities, scattered in rural areas away from crowds. It was said that the Titans targeted large groups. It had been better in the Midwest than in other parts of the world: there was plenty of space to hide here. Large pockets of Europe were simply gone. And then there was the West Coast, where the U.S. government had used nukes until it became apparent that the Titans were immune. Bran had heard similar news coming out of China. 

He was amazed that there had been any news at all, given the collapse of the infrastructure. Cell phone networks had mostly gone down as satellites were neglected. Electricity was spotty if there was even some to be found; the destruction of the Fisk power plant in ‘89 had hit the survivors hard. The one in Elgin was still running, but only occasionally. It had been destroyed in ‘88, but partially repaired after the town was mostly abandoned. Its days were numbered, though: the poison in the Illinois River was making its way up the Fox River, bringing the Absence in its wake. 

Don’t think about the Absence right now, Bran reminded himself. He had to get back to base. 

Rosehill Cemetery was the last outpost of the quickly shrinking Scion resistance. There weren’t many Scions in Chicago to begin with, but they had managed to gather as many as they could. They hadn’t been able to discover the unlocking process until about 18 months ago, at which point most of the potential Scions had fled the city. Training was haphazard and most of their new recruits died within a few weeks.

Bran’s heart sank even further as he charmed open the gate to the cemetery. They had been packing up the camp since two nights ago when the decision was made. They had only managed to delay the Titans in Chicago, and after three years it was time to move on. There was no one else trying to escape the city. Not anymore. 

Trudy was studying the maps in the command tent. She was one of the first Scions whose power they had managed to unlock, but she had been with them since the beginning. After Manifest Destiny’s sacrifice at the Battle of Goose Island, Trudy had become the de facto leader of the resistance. 

Trudy looked up as Bran came into the tent. Not even 25 yet, she had the eyes of an old woman. 

“Report?” she asked. Bran fought the reflex to salute. 

“Pretty quiet out there,” he replied. “No hostiles north of the Brown Line, though I heard some drums coming from Welles Park. I had a close shave with some hostiles near McPherson, but I lost them before heading back here.”

Trudy nodded. “Good. And you’re sure we can make it to the North Branch tonight?”

“As sure as I’ll ever be. The longer we wait, though, the riskier it is. I still don’t see why we can’t try for the Des Plaines directly.”

Trudy frowned. “Too close to O’Hare, which is a no-go. We’ll take the North Branch to the West Fork and then hike across to the Des Plaines near Deerfield. Then we go over the state line.”

“Then the walking begins,” Bran sighed. 

“Hopefully we can make the U.P. by winter,” Trudy said. She looked doubtful for a moment, then composed herself. “Are you packed?”

Bran shrugged. “Not much to pack. I’ll carry what needs carrying.”

Trudy nodded an implicit dismissal. Bran left to wander the camp where the survivors lived among the dead.

* * *

#### Niflhel

“You’re still here,” the shade said. It almost sounded surprised. 

“I’m thinking, that’s all,” she said serenely.

“About what?” the shade inquired.

She smiled. “The future.”

The shade barked a laugh. “What future? You have no future. You died and now you’re in Hel because no other realm would take you. Just give up and fade into the mist already, you’re creeping us out.”

Her smile stayed. “And yet, here I am. Thinking about the future.”

“Pointless,” the shade muttered. 

“Old habits die hard,” she said cheerfully. “Look up,” she added after a moment.

“Why?” it asked, as it looked up.

A drop of water fell to the ground between them. Not mist. Real water.

Better than real water: the great spring Hvergelmir, from which grows one of the three roots of Yggdrasil, was leaking into Niflhel. 

“Well,” she said. “That’s my cue.” She leaned back her head and waited to catch the next drop.


	2. I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run

#### Northbrook

“You stay here,” his sister had ordered him, “until I come back. Don’t open the door for anyone unless it’s me.”

So Matt stayed. He was safe: the bomb shelter that he was locked in had lots of food and a tiny bathroom and lots of books and things to do. Matt and his sister had been just fine in there for a long time. She was nine when they went in and he was only five then and since their parents weren’t there she was in charge. Now she was twelve and he was eight, according to the Disney calendar they had hanging on the wall. But she was still in charge.

But after a day and a night and another day and night, Matt was pretty sure that his sister wasn’t coming back. So he was in charge now. He packed up his army survival guide and his big fire axe and his heavy flashlight and all the food and water he could carry (there wasn’t much left anyway), tied a towel around his neck like a cape, and unlocked the shelter door.

His house was gone. So were all the houses in the neighborhood. He picked his way carefully through the rubble. He didn’t see any people. He smelled something really bad and hoped it wasn’t dead bodies. He had never seen a dead body, but his sister said that she had and that it was really scary. He gripped the axe tightly in both hands. It was almost dark out, even though Matt knew from the little clock in the shelter that it was only two in the afternoon.

In the distance, he could see the golf course. He had gone there a few times for a picnic, and at the clubhouse there were some bathrooms and a grill and a vending machine. Maybe he could get something from the vending machine. 

Matt remembered that he didn’t have any money. But then he remembered that he had an axe.

The golf course was all torn up, as though something gigantic had scratched its fingers through it. It was hard to see the clubhouse from where he stood, but he could hear voices coming from it. As he got closer, it started to sound like singing… well, really bad singing, at least.

Matt was starting to get a bad feeling. He walked a little more carefully. 

Hiding behind a particularly large pile of dirt, Matt peeked around to see what was going on. 

There was a big bonfire outside the clubhouse… or, rather, what was left of the clubhouse. It looked like it had been torn apart and put back together again with all the wrong pieces. It looked really wrong, like how the singing sounded wrong. There was a huge crowd of people, caked with dirt and what Matt was pretty sure was blood. The ground beneath Matt’s feet started to rumble. 

Taking another peek, he saw a familiar face under all that grime: his sister. She was singing too; Matt didn’t know how she could know what to sing… it didn’t sound like real words to him. 

Or did it? Always on the edge of understanding… if he squinted hard enough (or whatever you did with your ears) he might be able to figure it out. He started towards his sister. 

The ground rumbled again; Matt slipped on some loose gravel and sprawled to the ground. His axe went flying out of his reach. The crowd of people stopped singing and turned. 

“Matt!” his sister cried, and ran to him. She was covered in cuts and bruises and half of her hair had been cut off, but she didn’t seem to notice any of that. 

“What’s going on?” Matt asked, bewildered. Whenever he was confused, his sister would explain things to him. There had to be a good explanation for this, for why she hadn’t come back.

“Matt, you’re here! It’s all going to be okay!” His sister grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him towards the group. 

“It’s all going to be okay,” she said again. Matt’s skin began to crawl. She looked way too happy. 

“But what’s going on? Who are these guys?” Matt demanded. She was a lot stronger than he remembered. 

His sister turned back to look at him. Her eyes were wide and so was her smile. “It’s all going to be alright! They’re going to fix everything!” She started giggling. Matt tried to pull free of her grip, but she kept a tight hold of him and dragged him closer to the group, still giggling. 

Something had gone really wrong, Matt realized. Something really bad had happened to his sister, something that made her act completely wrong. “Stop acting crazy!” he yelled, pulling away so hard that his shirt tore along the shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

She kept giggling, and leaned in towards him as if to share a secret. “It’s going to be so wonderful, Matt… everything changed while we were down there. We didn’t know… but now we do. And the only way now is to give them everything.”

“Who are you talking about?” Matt cried. “Those guys?” he pointed at the crowd. They all had really wide grins on their faces. 

His sister shook her head. “No! We found gods, Matt! New gods! And if we give them everything they want we’ll be able to share in their power. We just have to let them.”

Matt was really scared now. “Why are you bleeding? What happened to you?” he asked, trying not to tremble.

She seemed to look right through him. “Everything, Matt. We’re giving them everything.” She started singing again, singing those horrible sounds, and everyone else started singing too. 

Matt screamed and pulled away, tearing his sleeve right off. He grabbed his axe and started running, blind with panic.

* * *

#### Chicago Loop

Every good story begins with dust. With nothingness. That’s how all stories start. 

Coming back from the dead again was easier than she thought. Messier this time, though, even with a stomach full of the Norn’s well-water.

Brushing away the ash that was all that remained of downtown Chicago, Lilith looked up at the darkened sky and smiled.

“Time to get back to work,” she said.


	3. If You're Feeling Sinister

#### Near Des Plaines

The kid nearly fell right on top of them. They were passing through Northbrook when something flung itself through the bushes and onto their raft. He was holding an axe. 

He was in hysterics. Something about his sister going crazy. When the kid mentioned the fire and the singing, though, Bran knew what had happened. 

Someone once told him, back when he first became a Scion and learned about the prison: “The Titans were just the gods who lost the war.” Probably Hank, the smug philosophizing bastard. With the Titans out of their prison, it wasn’t just a war for physical power: it was a war for believers, and the Titans were just as entitled to worshipers now as any god. 

He didn’t know where the cults started… but about a year ago, people who had escaped the city started to come back to it. That was when the resistance started losing people. Some went the usual way: found crushed to death or stabbed or torn apart by Titanspawn. But some people went and never came back. 

One of the non-Scions, Elaine, had vanished one night on patrol. People went out and looked for her, but after a week assumed she had been killed and dumped somewhere. But one night Dimo came back and said that he saw Elaine, alive.

“Well where is she, then?” Bran demanded. 

Dimo raised his hands as if to fend him off. “I don’t know, man. I tried to get her attention but she didn’t notice. She was surrounded by other people, though. They were way messed up.”

Then they started getting reports about the ceremonies. The earth started rumbling again. 

Boomer went looking. She was curious to a fault; Bran should have known she’d get into trouble. But Boomer came back from patrol unharmed and told them about the ceremonies. She had managed to spy on one. 

“Mostly ritual mutilation,” she said matter-of-factly. “Some very weird dialect of Old Sumerian, it sounds like. No idea how Elaine picked it up; it’s pretty complicated if you’re a native English speaker. I only understood bits and pieces.”

“What were they saying?” Trudy asked.

“Well, chanting… sort of. There were tonal elements, but very discordant. Intentionally so, I think. But yes, definitely Titan worship.”

“What?” Bran said.

Boomer shrugged. “I guess they’ve got worshipers now.”

“But how?” Bran demanded.

Boomer shrugged again. “I mean, unlike most of the gods, they’ve certainly managed to give a lot of evidence of their existence.”

“Yeah, but worship?” Bran asked. “They’re destroying everything!”

Boomer smiled. “Power is power,” she said, and walked away.

After that, Boomer started acting odd… well, odder than normal for the bookish Scion of Thoth. She started humming to herself, muttering things under her breath. She started getting a lot of strange injuries. “Tripped again,” she said cheerfully, declining a bandage for her bleeding arm.

Then she started getting sloppy on patrols. Finally, Trudy took her off patrol duty before she exposed them all. Boomer didn’t seem to mind. She started doing more work around the camp, hammering things together. Everyone thought it was just repairs at first. 

Dimo was the one who finally caught her trying to build an altar. She sliced her wrist open over it as she heard him call for help. Bran didn’t know what she was screaming as she fled out the gate and south down Western Avenue, but it sure wasn’t in any language he knew. 

The next time they saw Boomer, she had followers. A lot of followers. The whole cult moved down to Wrigley Field and turned it into a slaughterhouse. 

A few others in the resistance snapped that way too. They had to start watching everyone closely. Maybe the group in Northbrook was a splinter group of some kind. Bran didn’t know.

Looking over at their newcomer, Bran whistled softly to himself. Three years. That kid and his sister had locked themselves in a fallout shelter for three years.

* * *

#### Wrigley Field

The outer walls of Wrigley Field were adorned with skulls, and through the gaps in the bleachers Lilith could see firelight. As she neared the entrance to the stadium, her skin tingled with the energies radiating from what she knew was inside. She had felt such things before, but never at this scale. 

Hunger for something deeper than could be given by food or drink. Love corrupted into base animal need. Ecstasy in the face of horror. Zealotry given way to madness. 

It was pure, uncut belief. 

She went through the gates and beheld the mob living within. Bonnemaison had done his job beyond all expectations: a cult of blood and sacrifice, rejecting the old gods and glorifying the new ones. They had turned their despair upon their own bodies, slicing away anything nonessential, fleeing their own humanity. This was no longer a multitude of individuals; this was a single entity with many members. 

This was perfection, she thought. 

They had turned the center of the field into a monstrous altar, surrounded by a ring of fire. The noise of screams and chanting was incredible. It reverberated through her like a heartbeat. 

At the edges of her mind, the small parts of her that still qualified as human after multiple deaths and resurrections and transformations, she could feel the pull of it. The need to belong, to relax, to just stop fighting it all and submit… it tugged on those parts of her insistently, in rhythm with the chants.

This was better than she could ever have imagined. She walked towards the altar. 

In the center, supported by a series of stakes driven into the surface, was what remained of the Scion of Thoth. Boomer had been flayed with almost surgical precision, with her skin stretched out around her like lacy wings. Her eyes had been pulled out. Her tongue had been cut out and what teeth remained in her mouth were filed down to points. She had no nose, or lips, or cheeks left. Her scalp had been sliced and peeled away until it resembled an elaborate crown of burnt hair and flesh. Her entrails had been pulled out of her torso and hung like bloody garlands from the stakes, though still connected to her. Her legs and arms had been broken in dozens of places and left to heal with the bones still jutting through the skin. 

And she was, incredibly, still alive.

Lilith could guess how: Boomer had tapped into the divine energies created by the cult to survive. But she was as much a slave to it as the rest of them were. She lived, but only so that she could cut away more of herself. Lilith felt a small glimmer of admiration for her, but it quickly faded. Boomer had a choice and she chose wrong. 

At least she seemed happy. Well, not happy. Beyond happy. This was divine madness. 

Lilith looked around at the others. They seemed beyond happiness too.

This was going to be easy, Lilith realized.


	4. You Could Have It So Much Better

#### Burlington, WI

They made it across the state line about eighteen hours after that kid Matt had toppled into their raft in Northbrook. From there, the walking began. It took about eight hours to pack everything up and stow away the rafts and hike to the Fox River. 

When they reached Burlington, they were surprised not by how quiet the town was (most towns were quiet, these days), but how intact it was. 

“Looks like they all cleared out early on,” said Dimo, looking around. 

Bran looked over at Matt, who looked as on edge as Bran himself felt. The kid had his axe out. Probably couldn’t use it, but what the hell, Bran thought, he’ll learn if he survives long enough.

“Down!” hissed Trudy. They scattered. Bran crouched next to her. “What do you see?” he asked. 

“People,” Trudy whispered. They peeked carefully around the house they were hiding behind. 

“Shit,” said Bran. 

“They’re Absent,” Trudy said grimly. 

“It went faster up the Fox than we’d predicted,” Bran said, shutting his eyes. 

Trudy elbowed him in the ribs sharply. “We gotta go,” she said. “We can’t risk being exposed.”

They gathered up the group and headed back east. Trudy was back at her maps again as they walked. “There’s a branch of the Root River not too far from here,” she said. “We can take it up to New Berlin and then figure out what to do when we get there.”

Bran grimaced. “Another south-flowing river, yeah?” Trudy nodded. “Shit,” he muttered. 

“No choice,” Trudy said. “North is our only option.”

No one was really sure what the Absence was, exactly. The first cases of it appeared in northern Georgia about a year after the Titans returned. It spread by water: up the Tennessee River, then the Ohio River. Once it hit the Mississippi, it was too late to stop it. Though it went quicker downriver than upriver, it traveled in all directions. The Great Lakes, already in bad condition, would become no man’s land once the Absence made it there.

Here’s what they did know. The first symptoms resembled jaundice: the eyes and skin took on a yellowish hue. Lethargy followed: sufferers stopped talking, stopped showing emotion, and moved as though they were in a dream. If ordered to do something, they would comply but would do little beyond that. Eventually, their hair would fall out and their mucus membranes would excrete a brownish-yellow fluid, thought to be a mixture of cerebrospinal fluid, bile, and melanin. At this point, their skin would take on a grey hue and their eyes would lose all pigment. They still seemed to have some vision remaining, though how that was possible was a mystery. This lack of pigmentation also applied to the blood as well: sufferers would bleed a clear yellowish fluid. 

And they were, incredibly, still alive. Alive, but completely empty inside. No personality. No will. Absent.

The prevailing theory was that it was some kind of Titan weapon. But Bran’s personal theory was that it was the opposite: a weapon created to fight the Titans, but one gone horribly wrong. 

The Absence took away people’s souls. Without human souls, there was nothing left that the Titans viewed worth fighting for.

It was a scorched-earth strategy. No more souls. No more gods. No more Titans.

Nothing left but a hollow earth.

* * *

#### Wrigley Field

Boomer had done well, Lilith had to admit. The entire stadium had been altered into what was essentially a giant ritual circle. 

The threads of worship and adoration were beginning to coalesce around her. Lilith didn’t have to convince them that she belonged there. They already knew. All this time, they had been praising an empty space, one that was about to be filled. 

All of this felt right. All of Lilith’s visions and toil and struggle had led her here, to this place. 

_It felt so right._

She had not been made to serve others. She was not meant to be shaped as a tool for another’s use. She was meant to shape herself. 

The pain and the mania of the crowd began to increase. They surged forward around the altar, a tangle of mutilation and glorification. 

Closer, she thought. Come closer. They pressed around one another, pressed around the ring of flame, screaming in dark and lunatic tongues. 

They wanted so badly to be shaped. They had not been made for this new world. They had tried so hard, but now they needed her. 

And she was ready to give them what they needed. 

The ring of fire began to spread through the crowd. Soon, all were engulfed in flames except for Lilith and Boomer. To Lilith, the smell, noise, and sight of the inferno were like incense. 

_This was everything she had ever wanted._

Lilith plunged her fingers into Boomer’s open ribcage and ripped out her heart. 

The fire expanded again, swallowing up the altar. 

Lilith felt herself at the focal point. All of this belief and sacrifice and adoration was for her. 

_All for her._

She drank it in and felt it filling her up. She was expanding. She was more than herself now.

_Yes._

She was Boomer and the hundreds of worshipers around her.

_Yes._

And they were her.

_Yes._

They were a part of her. 

_Yes._

She was immense. She was glorious. She was eternal.

_Yes!_

She was a goddess.

She was--

The stadium collapsed in on itself in an implosion of fire and metal. Then it exploded with the force of an atomic bomb. 

From the crater that was all that remained of Wrigleyville rose a creature of fury and light, standing nearly 100 feet tall.

She was Lilith, Titan of Ecstasy and Apocalypse.


End file.
